Return of Ellis

In February, 2024, top tube of Ellis broke at the bottom bracket. Fortunately, I was going uphill at the time, albeit a far ways away from home. And in the additional department of luck department, one of my cycling friends was able to get her husband to come and return me and my bike home.

Dave Wages, the frame builder at Ellis Cycles stands by his work, and after letting him know, he said that he’d fix the frame at no cost to me, aside from shipping to his shop, and paying for the paint that the frame would need after the repairs.

I got the frame back around June, 2024, but there were a couple of things that delayed me in getting it back on the road. The first was that the newly chromed fork had been chromed all the way up the steerer tube, which made it impossible to fit the headset bearing race at the bottom.

After trying sandpaper and emery board with little success, I put it aside for awhile, mostly because I was also starting a new job, and didn’t have the time or energy to work on it.

In the spring of this year, I returned to the task of sanding down the chrome on the fork. I got some more emery cloth, and also make use of a file. Eventually, I got enough of the chrome off to fit the race. Success!

However, the next small obstacle was that there was a small chip in the new paint job on the seat tube, near where the derailleur would go. Unfortunately, it was above that spot, so it would still be noticeable. I asked Dave about getting in touch with his painter, to go over my options. Those options were

• Send the frame back for a paint touch up, which would give the best results
• Find a local painter, and have them to the touch up
• Get some touch-up paint from the painter and just do it myself

I decided on the third option, since that would get me back on the road the quickest, and would be the least expensive. However, there was some confusion on Dave’s end about the actual painter and I ended up going back and forth with the first one for a while before Dave’s return from his vacation, when he realized that it was another painter. Once I got in touch with them, getting the paint was relatively quick.

I still managed to put off doing the touch up, not feeling totally confident in my abilities to not mess it up. However, the frame of the Titus bike that I was currently riding was showing cracks in the seat tube near the bottom bracket. I had been keeping an eye on them, and they had not been growing until last week, when it looked like the cracks would soon connect all the way around the tube and result in a major failure.

With that in mind, I went to work on Ellis, doing the touch up paint, and then starting the long job of reassembling the bike with all the components. That went pretty well, although it was a long day’s work to get it all working smoothly, especially the front shifting, which was particularly fussy. I took it on the usual Thursday Page Mill ascent, and then on a longer ride in Morgan Hill on Saturday, where it got christened by the rain.

I just did a few tweaks today, installing 32mm tires and a better climbing cassette on the back (11-34) and it should be ready for its first 200km ride on Saturday.

It’s nice to have Ellis back, and I’m looking forward to many more years riding it.